NEWS & EVENTS

Sponsored Research Projects play a major role in CCS' students' lives

Sponsored Research Projects are a daily part of life at CCS. These projects are highly conceptual and allow students the opportunity to participate in creative, research-based assignments within real-world design parameters. CCS's corporate partners commit design and technical staff to students by providing guidance, expertise and feedback. Organizations financially sponsor conceptual design projects for CCS students and encourage inventive and unique design concepts. The corporate sponsors typically work with teams of CCS graduate students or undergraduate juniors and seniors and are supervised by CCS faculty to pursue new directions in design for their products. CCS’s corporate partners are continuing to expand and diversify their relationships with the College.

This past year, MFA students have partaken in some very exciting sponsored research projects. One projects was a collaboration between CCS and Royal Technologies Corporation in which the students explored the concept of comfort within the context of seating. Students developed a range of new—even radical—ideas that could be applicable to office, automotive, and residential categories.

Another project included the Safety Research Group at HondaR+D Americas, Inc. Honda sponsored the MFA Contextual Design Research class for fall 2012 to design the user experience for the next generation of vehicular Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS). ITS entails the use of information and communication technology, including sensors, in transportation infrastructure and vehicles, in order to improve transportation with goals such as safety and efficiency in the use of time, energy, and money. Graduate students have an opportunity to explore and design systems that will offer an integrated consumer experience combining navigation and entertainment needs with security requirements through advancements in sensors, camera technology, and product-to-product interaction. The students will not only conduct research to assess what the next generation of ITS technology must offer but design high-level scenarios to appeal to the unmet needs of future consumers.